October 14, 2016 Coats Museum NewsMrs. Mattie Highfill—what a teacher! Last week you recall that this lady gave almost fifty years of her life to educating students in the Coats High School. She attended college because her father believed that male and female children should have equal opportunities to do so. After graduating from the Buies Creek Academy in 1913, she attended UNC Greensboro. In 1918, she married William Ray Highfill who had been educated in agriculture at NC State and had plans to return home to take charge of the family farm. From that marriage William Earl and Frances Loraine Highfill were born. Her husband died in 1925 after a tonsillectomy in his doctor’s office. With two children under seven, Mrs. Highfill was left on her own.After her husband’s death, Mattie continued her education. Surprising to me was that she received a diploma in Advanced Dressmaking and Designing from the Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, Pennsylvania. That skill gave her the ability to support her family and pursue her dream of teaching. In May 1930, she completed a two-year diploma from Appalachian State Teacher’s College that allowed her to begin teaching. After teaching a year in Bonlee, Mattie Highfill arrived in Coats to begin her teaching career. In 1935, after many years of summer school, she received her Bachelor of Science degree from Appalachian State Teacher’s College.Keep in mind this was a time when day care centers were sparse. Who kept those children while she was attending school, I do not know. I do know that both those two children graduated from Coats High School beside many of the students whom Mrs. Highfill had taught. Earl had graduated in 1937 and Loraine in 1939. Ed went on to NC State to graduate with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1941. After service in WWII, he accepted a job with Exxon that would last for forty years. He and his wife Carol and their children, Bruce and Lori Highfill, lived abroad for most of his career in England, Germany, Italy, Greece, and Malaysia. Earl spent his last years working as Project manager of Exxon’s North Sea oil platforms, working out of England, Scotland, and Norway. Upon his retirement, Carol and he chose the mountains of western South Carolina as their home. Would you say that is quite an accomplishment for a young man that attended a school that had only one building until his last year of high school. He would spend his senior year in the building that was built in 1936. He grew up in a town that did not have stop lights until 1949 and then only two.Mattie’s daughter, Loraine, left Coats in 1939 to attend the same school her mother had attended in Greensboro at the Woman’s College. After graduation from that college in 1943, Loraine moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut for a job with General Electric. It was there that she met Russell Carlson, Jr., the son of Swedish immigrants who had settled in the western coastal area of Connecticut. Married in 1945, they became parents of Janet Loraine Carlson in 1948.Shortly after Janet was born, Loraine became debilitated with MS. Janet attended kindergarten in Connecticut. She was then sent to Coats to live with her Grandmother Mattie Highfill. Russell cared for Loraine until she died in 1972 which was six years after Janet had graduated from Coats High School in 1966.Janet and Mattie lived with Miss Mattie Bain in the brick house across from the Fred Byrd cotton gin. Janet went on to Campbell College for a degree in French literature, religion and philosophy. Janet later completed a language institute program at Yale University and course work for her Masters in French and Comparative Literature at UNC Chapel Hill.Does that make your head spin? Janet’s career took her in a different direction. A temporary job with Golden Coral Corporation in its early days led to a twenty-five year career in administrative and financial positions with that corporation. Pretty good for a small town girl who attended a school that offered only one foreign language-would you say?But what about Mattie? Janet wrote that Mattie found a home in Coats. It was not what she had expected but it gave her an opportunity to dedicate her life to the Coats community, to the Coats Baptist Church where she was a church clerk, choir member, Sunday school teacher and anywhere else she was needed.She was known as a tough but fair teacher who had the deepest desire to provide her students with the tools necessary for their success and happiness in life. Those of us who sat before her for nine months can attest to that fact.After retirement around 1960, she pursued an interest in painting taking classes in Connecticut and Campbell. She spent days painting and would create paintings to give to friends and relatives. Two of them are on loan in the Coats Museum.Mrs. Highfill even worked part time in the Campbell College Library and after the death of her stepmother, Belle Coggins, she donated her portion of the family inheritance to Campbell College as a scholarship in memory of her father Isaac Coggins who had cared enough for her future to send her to high school at the Buies Creek Academy.At the age of 85, Mattie left all she loved in Coats to go to a retirement center in Dunn and then to Mayview Convalescent Center in Raleigh to be near to her granddaughter. Mattie Highfill died in 1983 leaving behind hundreds of friends and students who truly benefitted from having their paths cross.Thank you Janet Carlson for sharing this info on your grandmother and I am sure many of us would say we wish we had told her what a blessing she was to us.Did Mrs. Highfill know the Quinton Lee of Coats who had lost his father, Timothy Lee, 70, of Four Oaks? Surely she knew the Royal Ambassadors of Coats Baptist Church were home from the Fruitland Baptist Camp. Those who attended were Don House, Bill House, Keith Douglas Smith, Donnie Lee, Gregory Beard and Jack Rose (Daily Record July 22, 1960).The Oakdale Club had met in the clubroom of the old school and Mrs. Ruby Parker, HD agent, presented the program on “Character and How to Grow.” Mrs. Rena Ennis, Mrs. Ada Barefoot, Mrs. Rob Adams, Mrs. R.E. Allen, Mrs. Delmer Ennis, Mrs. Mack Hudson, and Mrs. Garland Coats. Elsewhere at the Good Hope Hospital, Mrs. Rayvaugh (Geraldine Langdon) Stewart gave birth to a daughter on July 24th (Daily Record July 25, 1960).While Vice-President Richard Nixon was nominated for US President at the Republican Convention in Chicago, Herbert Wood, Mrs. Lucy Weaver, and Mr. Martin Turlington were hospital patients (DailyRecord July 27, 1960).Mr. and Mrs. O.S. Young had visited Mayor and Mrs. Charlie Turlington in Coats and had called on Mr. “Bill Dad” Williams who was to be 100 years old in October. Mr. and Mrs. Everett Barnes had spent last week with their son and daughter-in-law Mr. and Mrs. Neil Barnes (the former Betty Sue Willis of Coats), and daughters Kay and Laura of Petersburg, Virginia (Daily Record July 29, 1960).Who remembers when most stores closed on Wednesday afternoons? The same edition of the above paper stated that August 10th was to be the last day of the summer on which stores would observe the Wednesday closing.Mr. Willie Noles was a patient at BJH (Daily Record, Aug. 1, 1960). Mrs. Addie Parrish was listed as a patient in the next edition of the Daily Record. Do you wonder why these people were hospital patients? For over eight months, we have read over and over about Coats folks who were hospitalized. How many of them have you read of their obituaries? We obviously had good nurses and doctors in the facilities-right?I do know that the X-15 took a pilot 2,150 miles per hour, three times the speed of sound. A record was set (Daily Record Aug. 4, 1960).Mrs. Leonia Dupree and Mr. Alton Byrd were patients in Good Hope. Sybil Beasley had spent last weekend at Atlantic Beach with Miss Clayborn Bocker and family. Mr. and Mrs. Dunbar Stewart (Gwen Dixon) of Gastonia had visited their parents, Mr. and Mrs. Carlos Dixon and Mr. and Mrs. Fred Stewart. Betty Ellen Dixon returned home with them for a three-week stay. Mr. Harold Dixon had returned to Wake Forest for the last summer session. Mr. and Mrs. (Naomi Dixon) Seth Lee, Jr. and Tommy of Richmond, Virginia had visited with Naomi’s mother, Mrs. Robert Dixon (Daily Record Aug. 5, 1960).Thanks goes to Pat Gregory Richardson from Raleigh who donated her grandmother Mary Ann Dixon Gregory’s candy dish, her Aunt Onea Gregory’s porcelain creamer, her dad Victor Gregory’s fiddle and handmade mallet used at Ebenezer Presbyterian’ s homecomings to crush ice for lemonade. Pat is a descendant of Thomas and Polly Johnson Gregory as are hundreds of area folks.We welcome visitors every Sunday from 2-5pm and every Thursday from 9- 3pm. We gladly open by appointments for larger groups. Visit our website coatsmuseum.com.